


The Sword in "The Stone"

by Prochytes



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Apocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the errant Horsewoman is finally tracked down, it isn’t where most people would have thought to find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sword in "The Stone"

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _X-Men: Apocalypse_. References to racism and substance abuse. Originally posted on LJ in 2016.

Rain had surprised the pedestrians of East London after a day of baking brick, and grass smells from the green and gold of Weaver’s Fields. _The Stone_ \- a small pub, like most of its brethren in Bethnal Green - was crammed to the smoke-haunted rafters in consequence. The journey from the bar back to his seat wrung several tactful gyrations from the big blond man who bore two packets of crisps in one hand and a brimming pint in the other. He sat down with a contented wheeze, and pushed one of the packets of crisps across the table. 

 

“Your next pint is on its way,” the big man said. “They’re changing casks. Sid told me that he’d send someone over with it shortly.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“You can have mine, if you like, but I know you’re not fond of stout.”

 

“I’ll wait. You get started on yours. There’s always the crisps.”

 

“There’s always the crisps.”

 

The big man took a pull from his stout as his companion addressed the crisps. Much smaller than him, and lithe, she did not seem troubled by the cramped surroundings. The streaks in her long dark hair excited little attention in the pub. Eighties London was still rolling the taste of Punk around its tongue. 

 

“These aren’t salted,” she said. 

 

“They’re Smith’s crisps, Bets. You salt them yourself, with the little blue sachet that’s invariably settled at the bottom. Fishing it out and haphazardly sprinkling the salt is half the fun.”

 

The woman called Bets gave him a long appraising stare. She bent again to her task. Purple light kindled for a moment between her fingers. Salt rained evenly down from the serrated sachet on the tawny field below.

 

“ _That_ just sucks the joy straight out of everything.” He watched her eat the crisps. “You’re putting those away quickly.”

 

She shrugged. “Not much time for food, lately. Or for rest.”

 

“I’d guessed that.” He noted, with a pang, how the glow from the over-dressed table lamp picked out the sharpened angles of her cheeks and brow. “Even so, you look pretty hungry.”

 

“I am.”

 

“One might almost say ‘famished’.”

 

She scowled at him. “Still not telling you which one of them I was.”

 

“Worth a try.”

 

“How’s the firm?”

 

“In rude good health, thanks for asking, despite war to the knife between Commodore and Texas Instruments.” He held his pint up against the light. “Home computing would appear to have caught the popular imagination. I can even slope away to watch the Arsenal once in a while.”

 

“Arsenal. Nothing changes. I don’t know why you go on torturing yourself.”

 

“Rubbish, Bets. This year’s their year. I feel it in my bones.”

 

“Probably arthritis. Love the Gunners all you like. They just don’t love you back.”

 

“Humph.”

 

“You need a less masochistic hobby.” She licked a finger, to make the crisp crumbs adhere. “Why don’t you travel, now that money’s not a problem? See more of the Continent, like you said you would.”

 

“Hard to find the time.” He lowered the glass. “Might go to Egypt again, though. The Pyramids are a bit samey, but I’ve heard they’ve got some new ones.”

 

She sighed. “You won’t let this go, will you?”

 

“You know I can’t. That isn’t in me. We’ve been tip-toeing around the late unpleasantness, but…” He drummed his fingers for a moment before looking again across the table. “Did you kill anyone, Bets?”

 

She did not lift her head. His frown deepened.

 

“Don’t point that silence at me. Your Marmalade Atkins routine only works so long as the gore stays strictly Kensington. Did you _kill_ anyone, Bets?”

 

“No.” She met his gaze. “The desire was there, certainly. I would have killed the one who moved like an ape, the one I told you about, if I hadn’t been…” She stopped, frowning. 

 

“… KO-ed? Defeated? _Beaten_?” He saw the flush mount in her cheeks, and sighed. “That’s the problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? It’s harder for you to admit that you _lost_ than it is to say that you almost murdered a good man.”

 

Her gaze did not waver. “You don’t get to sit in judgment on me.”

 

“Is that so? I was under the impression that you had brought Days of Judgment back into fashion.”

 

“I don’t recall you being so righteous in the Seventies.”

 

He nodded, eyes hooded. “That’s fair. I’ve let you down too often.”

 

“You were a drunk. Death Duties were swallowing the estate, and where were you? Inside a bottle, like you always were. A fine figure we cut.” Her lips twisted. “‘Marquis’s son unused to wine’ and the child of James Braddock’s Chinky whore.”

 

He looked sad. “No one ever said that, Bets.”

 

She tapped her forehead. “No one ever had to.”

 

“I’m sorry your gift caused you so much pain.”

 

“It wasn’t a gift. I’m glad I found a better use for it.”

 

“That bloody sword of yours. When was the last time you tried to read a mind?”

 

She shrugged. “I don’t need to know what people are feeling. It’s a weakness.” 

 

“I’ve heard this tune before. ‘Compassion would impair me as a warrior.’ You blunt your senses, the better to whet your blade.” He shook his head. “I’ve never understood that about you, Bets. If being a warrior means that you can’t help an old lady across Hyde Park Corner, give up your seat for the tired and laden on the Tube, or get through a working week without ending the world, where’s the earthly point in being one at all?” He saw her attention shift, and frowned. “What are you looking at?”

 

“I think my bitter’s arrived.”

 

The big man turned in his seat. A scrawny youth in a t-shirt stood at his shoulder, clutching a pint in his right hand. “Good evening, Gary. Is that for us?”

 

“Yes, guv. Sid says ‘sorry’ for the slow delivery.”

 

“Good man. Stick it there on the table, please.”

 

“Right you are, guv.” The young man bustled up to the table. Bets watched as he set down the pint, and began to sweep away the leavings of the crisps. 

 

“I like your suit,” she said, after a while. 

 

The youth looked puzzled. “I don’t have a suit, miss.”

 

“Yes, you do.” Steely fingers closed around his wrist, while a purple dagger appeared in Bets’ other palm. “It’s a good one. But from what I saw at the bar, earlier this evening, Gary ought to be left-handed.” She glared at her table-companion. “Did you tell her I’d be here?”

 

“What the bloody hell has got into you, Bets?” The big man hastily craned forward, using his bulk to shield the dagger from the other patrons. “Gary’s harmless. And, in case you haven’t noticed, a bloke.”

 

“Will you tell him,” Bets addressed the youth, “or shall I?”

 

Gary directed a thorough and thoughtful look around the pub. A chant of “Happy Birthday” had just struck up at the other end of the bar; every eye was fixed on the flushed and grinning honorand. When Gary turned back to the table, a statuesque blonde woman stood in his place. The big man’s mouth dropped open, and then snapped shut.

 

“I will take it very badly,” he said, in a calm, level voice, “if any harm has befallen the boy whose face you stole.”

 

“Gary is fine,” the blonde woman said. “He slipped out for a cigarette. I agreed to take the pint over for him. My quarrel is not with him, or you.” She looked at Bets. “But she and I have business to settle.”

 

“We do,” said Bets.

 

“I don’t think you want to draw attention here.”

 

“Then let’s dress down.” The dagger disappeared from Bets’ hand.

 

“No powers. Just strikes and holds. Your muscle, speed, and skill matched against mine. Winner takes all.”

 

“There’s a spot outside.”

 

The blonde nodded. “Show me.”

 

“Jesus wept,” said the big man, to no one in particular. He drained his stout, and buried his face in his hands. 

 

***

 

London led with its chin during the Blitz. The East End had the worst of it. Four decades on, odd flecks of rubble and rosebay willowherb still mottled the face of Bethnal Green, though their number diminished year by year. Bets guided her blonde antagonist to one such spot, now slick with rain, down beside the railway arches. The big man followed in their wake.

 

“This is wrong, Bets,” he said. 

 

“This is how it has to be.”

 

“Bollocks to that. The justice of a case is not proven by who can hit harder and faster, or stand more pain. And apart from anything else, this is just tawdry. Playing minder to a mad pharaoh might have been morally bankrupt, but it had _some_ class. Not brawling outside a pub like Terry McCann.”

 

Bets began to take off her coat. The blonde woman, who had retired to a polite distance on the other side of the ground, swinging her arms, had already lost, somehow, the jacket that she had been wearing when they left _The Stone_. The big man talked on, in a lowered voice. 

 

“And just in terms of tactics, this makes no sense. You’re exhausted, nowhere near the top of your game, and, for reasons I don’t understand, you let her talk you out of using your powers.”

 

“An unfair advantage in a duel of honour? I’m shocked to hear you suggest that.” Bets dropped her jacket on a chunk of rubble. "You’re the one who’s meant to be the paladin.”

 

“I try to be an honest man, Bets. That doesn’t make me a mug. If one’s trapped in a stupid fight, one might as well win it. But you and your confounded pride… You could have said ‘no’.”

 

“You know I can’t. That isn’t in me.” She bit her lip. “Thank you for being here. Give me your word that you won’t intervene.”

 

“I…” His shoulders slumped. “You have my word.”

 

“Always the white knight.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks again.”

 

The big man looked on from the shadow of a crumbling wall as the two opponents began to circle each other. Preoccupied, and sick to his stomach, he did not spot a new glint of metal just beyond the wan compass of the street-lamp, until another voice broke the silence:

 

"Brrr. Better wrap up warm, boys. There's a Nip in the air."

 

Four men stepped into the light. They wore jeans and thin t-shirts, on which Union flags were discoloured by erratic adherence to the damp flesh beneath. Each also boasted a pair of black metal gauntlets, which covered the arm up to the elbow. Their leader spoke again, addressing the blonde:

 

"Is Tiger Lily here giving you any trouble, miss?"

 

The blonde eyed him coldly. "Who the hell are you?"

 

"They're National Front." The big man walked forward, taking a place between the two women and the gauntleted newcomers. "'England for the whites.' They usually drink at the _Blade Bone_ on the High Street. Am I right?"

 

The leader nodded.

 

"I don't like your away kit much." The big man gestured at the gauntlets.

 

The leader smirked. He picked up a piece of rubble and, with deliberation, closed his hand around it. Ground powder dropped from his grasp to dampen on the pavement. The big man nodded.

 

"I see. Power gloves. Enhance the weather's strength and durability. The British Army trialled them for the Falklands, but the long-term cost of using them was too high. You go on wearing those, son, you can kiss goodbye to the idea of having children."

 

"And what a tragedy for the gene pool that would be," said Bets.

 

"You've got some fucking lip on you, Tiger Lily. Someone needs to teach you a lesson."

 

"Go home, son," said the big man. "It's late, and your dinner's getting cold. Don't start something you can't finish."

 

"You some kind of Nip-lover, mate? Like a bit of yellow in your eggs, is that it? Get out of our way." The gloved man frowned as Bets stifled a smile."What's she laughing at?"

 

"I'm not the mind-reader of the family." The big man ambled towards him. "But I can hazard a guess. Firstly, she's aware that I don't take orders from the Black Shorts, however elegantly they may otherwise be attired."

 

"You keep your fucking distance, mate."

 

"No. Secondly, Elizabeth Braddock knows that she's just as English as you or I. Thirdly..."

 

The leader snarled and threw a punch. Ruby fire pulsed along the glove as he swung. The big man caught the fist in a languid palm.

 

"...she's my little sister." He looked back at Bets, while absently applying pressure. His adversary found himself driven to his knees. "May I?"

 

Bets smiled outright. "Be my guest."

 

The rest of the National Front men had seemed a little mesmerized by the turn of events. Now they shook themselves out of their reverie. They tried to rush to their leader's aid, but a purple whip snaked round the ankles of one, and a blue foot connected with the head of another, and the minute that followed was in general deleterious to their well-being.

 

When the fight was done, Bets surveyed the vista of groaning and bruised humanity on the ground before her. The luminous blade reappeared in her grasp.

 

“No.” The big man stood between her and the fallen. “No one dies tonight, crowned rider. Not in my manor. Is that clear?” 

 

“Relax, Brian.” Bets stepped around him. “The blade doesn’t have to cut.”

 

She knelt beside the gang leader, and plunged the knife into his forehead, whispering, “Forget”. No blood marred his skin, but the big man saw the body slump. He scratched his head. 

 

“That’s a new trick.”

 

“I’ve been practising.” Bets moved on to the cohorts. “I’d rather they didn’t remember what they saw of me. Would you be able to dump them somewhere else for when they wake up?”

 

“Not a problem.” The big man, without apparent exertion, draped a body over each shoulder, and gripped the remaining two by the scruffs of their necks. He glanced across at the blonde woman, who had been watching in silence since the brawl had concluded. “I would be greatly obliged if the two of you would resist the urge to knock each other’s block off until I return.”

 

The blonde slowly nodded. Bets sighed. “You have my word.”

 

“Good.” The big man looked carefully around. “Back in a jiffy.”

 

He crouched for a moment, and kicked away from the ground into the air, disappearing over the railway arches. The blonde woman surveyed his trajectory with a thoughtful expression.

 

“He can fly?” she asked. 

 

“He can jump,” said Bets. A faint wisp of voluble swearing blew across from the other side of the arches. “Ungracefully.”

 

The blonde cocked her head on one side. “You have a brother.”

 

“I do.”

 

“You have a brother called _Brian_.”

 

Bets’ eyes narrowed. 

 

“You have an English brother called Brian, who drinks stout, supports the Arsenal, and calls you ‘Bets’. It’s a different light on you.”

 

“That look she’s giving you right now,” said Brian, who had just landed again with a thump beside them, “is the one I call her ‘enigmatic, yet sultry’. She practised that for hours in front of the mirror when we were young. Used it to ensnare that susceptible Harrovian, didn’t you, Bets? What was his name? I think that he may be a Cabinet Minister now.”

 

The blonde looked from Bets to Brian, and back again. 

 

“Uncanny, isn’t it?” said Bets. “We could be twins.”

 

“Bets’ mother, a wonderful woman, was not our father’s wife,” said Brian. “He adopted her as my sister after her mother died. As I said earlier, Bets is as English as I am. She’s named for our sovereign lady, after all. She only affects that ghastly accent to be annoying.”

 

“Oh, do fuck off, Brian.”

 

“Which, as you can see, is a consistent trait.” Brian scratched his chin. “Well, I have to say that I found that little adventure rather diverting. The three of us united in a virtuous cause. I'll drop a note to my friend Alistair in Military Intelligence to let him know where I stashed the gloves, and ask him to look into how those hooligans got their grubby mitts on them. That’s the thing about violence, of course. It can feel cathartic, but, by itself, it rarely solves anything.”

 

“This,” Bets said to the blonde, “is exactly as subtle as he ever gets.”

 

“All the same,” the blonde replied, “Captain British here does have a point. You’re not exactly the woman I took you for, and I may have gone in too strong back at the pub. Do you acknowledge that you have a debt to pay?”

 

Bets looked at Brian’s hopeful expression, and sighed. “Yes. I do.”

 

“Meet me outside St. James the Less, at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Maybe this doesn’t have to end in more bloodshed.”

 

“I’ll be there. You have my word.”

 

“Thank you. Nice to meet you, Brian Braddock.”

 

“Mutual, I’m sure.”

 

The blonde nodded. Her form flowed into that of a small boy. The Braddocks watched him scamper away.

 

“I don't know about you, Bets,” said Brian, after he had disappeared from view, “but I'm going back to the pub.”

 

***

 

Their chairs were unoccupied when they returned to _The Stone_. Of such small felicities are a successful pub night made. Bets looked up as her brother brought their round from the bar.

 

“Third pint, Brian,” she said, quietly.

 

“I know. It'll be the last tonight.” Brian deposited the pints, and patted his sister's hand. “But thanks for remembering that there have been times when I’ve needed someone to keep count.”

 

He sat down, and took a gulp of stout. “I like your friend.”

 

“She's not my friend.”

 

“Forthright. Has no truck with your occasionally overabundant bullshit. A looker, too, though I gather that that's entirely optional.”

 

“You and your blondes.” Bets’s fingers were restless. “I could have taken her, you know.”

 

“I'm sure. I know what you're like when your blood is up. I still carry the scars from the Great Pencil-Case War of ’62.”

 

“Mmm.” Bets looked at her hands. “'Crowned rider’. You did work out which one I was.”

 

“It wasn’t hard. I always was a surprisingly dab hand at Divinity. _And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer._ War has the sword, of course. But the crowned rider is the one who’s all about the _winning_.” He took another pull at his pint. “The purple leotard was an odd omission from the relevant verse. No doubt precognitive reception at Patmos was on the blink that day.”

 

“Piss off.”

 

“It’s a serious point, though. Your obsession with your own prowess is your greatest weakness, Bets. You always have to be the fastest, the strongest, the best. It’s the hockey captaincy at Roedean all over again. You go blind to everything else. Even if that means throwing in your lot with a Messianic Smurf.”

 

“Don’t be flippant, Brian.” Bets winced. “You can have no idea of what he was like.”

 

“My apologies. But he’s gone. Which leaves the onerous task of making amends.”

 

“If I choose to take it on.” Bets raised her chin. For a moment, she looked very young again. “Maybe I won’t turn up at that church, tomorrow. I could just skip town.”

 

“You could.” Brian rested his elbows on the table. “But you won’t. You came here because you already knew, deep down, what sort of advice you'd receive from me. You just needed to talk yourself into it. It's like that tiresome man Sartre’s fable about going to a priest.”

 

“I suppose you’re right.”

 

“That’s a malady by which I have been latterly much afflicted.”

 

“I was surprised that you talked my pursuer out of the fight at the arches, though. You really aren’t as inspirational as you think you are.”

 

He shrugged. “Perhaps the spectacle of a sanctimonious and once drink-addled brother saddled with a wayward adoptive sister struck some sort of chord.”

 

“Perhaps. Anyway, she couldn’t have made us do anything we didn’t want to.”

 

“It shouldn’t be about that, Bets. Justice should be allowed to prevail, always. Not the fact that I can juggle cars and you can bisect them.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “We’re back to the old argument. Might or right?”

 

“Might _for_ right, sister dearest. Every time.”

 

Bets snorted. “Why do all the people I meet love that book so much?”

 

“It would seem you travel in cultivated circles.” Brian drained the last drops of his beer. “Shall we make a move?”

 

“Let’s do that.”

 

There was a piano against one wall of the pub. As Bets and Brian negotiated their path to the door, the birthday party struck up a sing-along. Brian smiled as he recognized the tune. 

 

“ _We are far too young and clever_. Has anyone ever actually managed the trick of being young and clever simultaneously? Not we benighted Braddocks, that's for sure.”

 

“I couldn’t say”, Bets replied. She inhaled. The birthday boy, Charlie, was just the right stage of plastered, and managing that delicate act of domestic maintenance with an innocent delight in his own accomplishment. Dave would be sharing with the throng, after the first few songs, the news that Connie had said “yes” when he popped the question. Linda was thinking how much her old man, God rest him, would have enjoyed all this.

 

Brian took in the expression on his sister’s face. His smile broadened.

 

“Why, Betsy, I do believe you’re letting them back in.”

 

“Perhaps.” The night air was cool again on their faces, although the rain was gone. “A moment of weakness.”

 

“Here’s hoping for many more of those.” Brian bowed gravely. “Look after yourself, Bets.”

 

“Look after yourself, ‘Captain British’.”

 

“‘Captain British’. That has a certain ring to it.” The big man paused, reflecting. “But I think that it still needs a little work.”

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> Betsy and Brian, between them, quote from _Brideshead Revisited_ by Evelyn Waugh, Revelation 6:2, and "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners. For the purposes of assimilation to the movie-verse, I have diverged from the comics in some details of Brian's familial relationship to Betsy, and, implicitly, of the origin and nature of his powers. The _Blade Bone_ of Bethnal Green High Street did exist, and was, at least by reputation, as unsavoury as herein depicted in the early 1980s, but _The Stone_ is my own invention.


End file.
